Although long-distance travel via public modes of transportation—such as airplanes—has in recent years become less expensive and thus more accessible to the general public, certain concessions have had to be made. For instance, in order to accommodate greater numbers of passengers, seating spaces have notoriously become narrower, granting each traveler less and less personal space. A common complaint from travelers in such conditions is that neighboring passengers disrespect what is left of any personal space by overtaking shared portions defined by the seating arrangements. For example, “elbow wars” colloquially refers to passive aggressive and sometimes assertive disagreements over use of shared armrests.
Some solutions for clearly dividing shared spaces have been proposed. For instance, U.S. Pub. No. 2015/0084393 filed by Chang et al. teaches a portable arm rest divider which expands the surface area of the arm rest and provides a barrier that separates the space allotted to seated neighbors. As another example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,959,231 to Lee discloses an armrest defined by vertically separated planes which are designed to accommodate one each of neighboring travelers' forearms. Unfortunately, these still require each neighbor to tacitly accept the other into a portion of his shared space.
Some wearable devices have also been proposed to avoid the need for such compromise by placing an auxiliary arm support within the personal space defined by the traveler's own body. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 6,973,691 to Cordova et al. discloses an elongated pillow support with a horizontal pocket for receiving arms therethrough; U.S. Pat. No. 6,966,069 to Booth teaches a traveler's blanket with integrated arm pockets; and U.S. Pat. No. 6,435,185 to Schimpl teaches an arm support formed as a sweater that rigidly maintains bent arms within a horizontal envelope formed in the body of the support.
Still, these proposed solutions are deficient for various reasons, including for example that they lack ergonomic support, storage capability, and adjustability, and the problem of comfortably resting arms over the course of travel persists. Thus, there remains a need for a personal, wearable armrest.